Best Crossing Network: ConvergEx Group

Partnership and integration with order management systems (OMSs) helped BNY ConvergEx Group secure the best crossing network honors in this year’s Waters Rankings. BNY ConvergEx started the year by working with Mahogany Partners, an agency brokerage cooperative, to deliver Sonar, a multi-crossing network front end, in June. BNY ConvergEx’s network provided the workflows and enabled the member interaction necessary to obtain block liquidity outside of exchanges and interested third parties. Sonar offers blotter polling and scraping capabilities for different crossing networks, and a companion blotter allowing Mahogany members to cross orders among themselves. In Sonar’s opt-in model, users may set aside part of their blotter and let the system poll venues, opening a negotiation window when it finds a potential match. BNY ConvergEx, in turn, also has integrated Sonar connections into Mixit’s order management system, and plans to work with other Mahogany Partners users to bring them onto the new front end.